1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to noise generating toys, and more particularly, to an optical sensing circuit for actuating a noise generator in a toy to emit at least one, and preferably plural, audible sounds, as well as the manner in which said optical sensing circuit, noise generator, and related components are mounted within such toy.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Children have in the past exhibited a desire to play with toys that mimic behavior typical of a real-life human or animal. The advancement of the electronics industry has made it possible for toys to more realistically portray the desired traits. In particular, toys which are capable of producing audible sounds upon activation by the user have in the past proven to be very successful.
Initially, noise-generating toys were manually activated by a user depressing various portions of the toy to force air through whistle or reed-type mechanisms. However, these manually actuated mechanisms failed to closely mimic or emit sounds which were typical of the human or animal which the toy portrayed. Further, such prior art toys had to be directly activated by the user and could not be sustained over any length of time.
Noise-generating toys were later adapted to incorporate electronic circuits to electrically control movement of toys and the audible sounds emitted therefrom. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,443,338 to Collins discloses a toy which simultaneously mimics a dog's physical movements while emitting an audible sound which imitates a dog's bark. The mechanism for producing the simulated dog movements and barks is directly activated by a switch controlled by the user.
The development of the photo-cell enabled toy manufacturers to provide toys which could be activated remotely by light. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,274,729 to Refabert discloses a doll having a photo-cell actuated sounding means. In particular, the Refabert patent discloses a photoconductive cell which is mounted in such a manner on the doll so that it can be irradiated by light, such as on the doll's chest or in one of the doll's eyes. A small electric motor is energized under control of the intensity of the irradiation of the photoconductive cell; the small electric motor powers one or more bellow and reed mechanisms, which mechanically create audible sounds.
As electrical technology has advanced, the need existed to provide remotely actuated toys which elicit a plurality of audible sounds without the need for providing plural mechanical bellows and reed combinations. Recently, the tendency has been to provide verbally actuated toys. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,221,927 to Dankman et al. discloses a voice responsive talking toy. The Dankman patent discloses a toy which, in response to a complex sound such as human speech, generates a train of audio pulses, and also activates LEDs positioned in eye and mouth portions of the body of the toy. The pulses generated by the Dankman toy are psuedorandom with respect to frequency composition and duration. Such toys require farily complex and expensive electrical circuits.
The need still exists to provide a toy which is remotely or automatically actuated to emit audible sounds and which is efficiently and inexpensively manufactured.
Light-activated toys are typically used by children indoors, and in some instances, where fluorescent lighting is used. In rooms where fluorescent lighting is present, significant amounts of 60 cycle and 120 cycle light flicker may be present, although imperceptible to the human eye. Toys incorporating photosensitive devices respond to varying degrees to such light flicker and produce an output signal which inclues a 60 cycle and/or 120 cycle light flicker component. Care must be taken, when designing such toys for indoor use, to ignore or reject such light flicker components in order to avoid continuous triggering of the toy or other interference with its intended mode of operation.
Within the fields of intrusion alarms and automatic focusing cameras, it is known to use two or more photosensitive devices either to detect the passage of an object through a protected field or to detect the presence or absence of an object at a predetermined focal point. Examples of such optical systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,002,899; 4,317,992; and 3,631,434. However, such optical systems are not well suited for use within a toy intended for often rough handling by children. Such optical circuits typically require careful alignment of the optical sensors incorporated therein so that the optical paths viewed thereby overlap at a predetermined focal point or are otherwise positioned in a fixed relationship relative to one another. Obviously, it would be almost impossible to maintain any particular alignment between multiple photosensitive devices and/or related optical paths within a toy that is likely to be dropped, thrown and/or kicked. In addition, such prior art optical systems employing multiple photosensitive devices are often designed to distinguish between a matched condition (when both photosensitive devices view the same relative light intensity) and a mismatched condition (when the photosensitive devices receive different relative light intensities). While it may be practical to distinguish between matched and mismatched conditions for an intrusion alarm or focusing device where relative alignments of the optical paths can be carefully controlled, such a detection system would not be practical for an optically actuated toy.
It has been determined that an optical sensing circuit for incorporation within a child's toy doll should lend a personality to the toy wherein it appears to respond differently to different people, or in actuality, to different types of clothing worn by persons playing with the toy under various lighting conditions. It is also deemed desirable to provide an optical sensing circuit allowing the toy to spontaneously respond to changes in naturally occurring lighting conditions, for example, sunrise, sunset, the creation of shadows and/or changes in room light induced by movement of clouds. In contrast, intrusion detection circuits and automatic focusing devices must be designed to ignore such changing ambient conditions in order to prevent the generation of false alarms and/or improper focusing signals.
As set forth above, a toy of the type described herein is intended to respond to a stimulus, preferably light-related, in order to generate a series of lifelike sounds. However, it has been found that attempts to generate such lifelike sounds with signals of a single frequency are insufficient. It has further been determined that, in order to make such a toy more appealing to children and others, that such audible sounds be retriggerable if the stimulus that initiated such sounds is repeated within a short period of time.
Of course, another difficulty faced by a toy designer in producing such an optically actuated toy for generating audible sounds is the matter of packaging the photosensitive devices, related electronic circuitry, and a related speaker in a form which may be easily incorporated within a doll or other toy, protecting such components from abuse, while minimizing the overall cost of the product.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved remotely activated circuit for causing audio signals to be emitted from a toy.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a circuit which is inexpensive to manufacture, requires little power to operate in order to conserve battery power drain, and generates random, lifelike audio signals upon activation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a circuit which generates and emits sounds which are typical of the character which the toy portrays, such as a human child, an animal, or a television character.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a toy having an optically actuated sound generator which toy is substantially immune to light flicker conditions induced by fluorescent lighting.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide such a toy having a simple yet sensitive optical sensing circuit for reacting to movement of the toy and/or movement of persons or objects surrounding the toy in order to generate such audible sounds.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide such a toy which appears to exhibit a personality by responding in a different manner to different persons and under different lighting conditions, and by responding to naturally occurring changes in ambient light conditions.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide such a toy having circuitry which can vary the frequency of the audible signals being generated, and which retriggers the generation of such audible signals when the initiating stimulus is repeated within a short period of time.
A further object of the present invention is to provide such a toy wherein the optical sensors, related circuitry, and associated speaker are assembled in a compact and inexpensive form for ready assembly within the body of a doll or other toy.
Another object of the present invention is to incorporate a light-emitting device within such a toy to provide a visual response to the child in combination with the audible response set forth above.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent to those skilled in the art as the description thereof proceeds.